Music. For people with ears.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh the difficult second album. Where to begin? Well…with ‘Aim High’ that’s where.

The ORIGINAL plan was to get in and record this new set of songs as quickly as possible, pretty much track everything live and get it done swiftly. How wrong we were. The band at this point I think had expanded to Myself, Dave on guitar, Ox on bass, Elliott on drums and Roxanne on keys. Jack had moved to the imaginary, made-up place of Sherfield-on-Loddon for work and, although he was still a member of the band, logistics prevented him on getting down much to Southsea to record anything.

Rox was a great addition – lending her ace vocals and silky piano skills to many a track. I’d always wanted dual male/female vocals (which is why 3 songs on our first album have ladies as guest singers) and I started writing accordingly. The mighty Ox had also stepped in to a full time role after we’d toured together as Dawn Chorus stand-ins. No-one slappa da bass like him.

So….what happened? Well, rather selfishly I went off traveling around Asia for 3 months (in order to…you know….like….totally find myself dahling…) and I got engaged. Upon returning, I’d had all these new ideas for songs and music. The main crux of which was a ridiculously overblown concept piece, more of which I’ll chat about later. I’d made recordings of foley and sound effects etc…while I was away and wanted to take the thread of ‘Beginning. Middle. End’ even further with a 3 act concept album. As you do. If you’re going to do something, you may as well go for it eh? Well thank God it didn’t actually happen like that as I think the slimmed-down, final group of tracks that became album 2 are much, much better for it.

‘Aim High’ was an early contender. I wanted to streamline my songwriting and condense my ideas a little. If there’s a major criticism (that I also sort of see as a positive to be honest…) with the first album it’s that it sounds like loads of different bands. Album 2 was a conceited effort to come up with a TBOTB definable ‘sound’. Still an eclectic one but more focused and direct.

Originally a gentle little acoustic number, I’d been inspired by some of the chanting monks (I’m not even lying…what a tool…) from Laos and Vietnam etc…so, wherever we could force a big, gang vocal harmony in, we did. Fittingly, we thought it should open the album and it ended up being our second single. I made the video using an iPhone app for nothing. It took forever. But it does sum up the whole period of recording quite nicely…

A live version from The Bull & Gate, Camden for Club Fandango…

…and from our album launch at The Wedgewood Rooms (nice intune vocals at the start there…few nerves I expect…)